The Second Chance He Always Needed
by Dr. Bruce Banner
Summary: When Anna Wain goes of to volunteer in Calcutta, she knew that she was going to help people. The person that she helped the most, was the person that she thought didn't need help at all.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys, okay so this is kinda new to me as I haven't wanted to write something as much as I did this, so I thought I'd try it out. I'm new at writing so please can you give me some good constructive comments, not ones like "good, new chapter please". I actually want to know what I'm doing well at and what I'm not. I know this chapter isn't very long but it just wanted to try it out first. Please comment below.**

I was twenty-two when I decided to change the course of my life. As a child, I always knew what I was going to do, go to school so that I could go to university and get a good paying job. But when I was twenty-two that all changed, after I had finished university with a degree in business studies, I was told I had to look for a job but I decided against that, I wanted to do something with my life. I didn't want to be that person that worked for themselves for most of their life, missing out on important experiences to be had around the world.

That was when I decided that I wanted to go abroad and help people, you know be one of those people that you see on pamphlets fgiving food to the poor or helping build a well in Africa.

But, this would be a trying experience for me, I was a young girl from a small town in England, only having gone abroad twice, to France on school trips, and even with that it was no longer than a week that I stayed there.

First I had to figure out where I was going to go. I didn't want to stay in England because I knew that before I was to be ties down with kids and a job, I wanted to at least travel to somewhere other than Europe. How I decided was that I did what anyone my age would do. I went on the internet to research about charities that needed volunteers in other country's. It took me a while to find the charity that I decided to go to help.

'Sunny' was a small charity that only had a small amount of volunteers working for them in Calcutta, India. But instantly after seeing the picture that they had on their website, I knew that that was where I wanted to go.

That was how I ended up here right now, at the airport with my family. My Dad, Richard, lifted my suitcase out of the car as my mum and siblings surrounded me.

"Are you sure you have got everything?" My Mum asked for the fourth time as she twirled her blond hair around her finger.

As a child, I always got told that I looked like my Mum, I have her blue eyes and blond hair, which was completely different to all my other siblings, who all had the brown hair and eyes from my dad. I, however didn't get her genes in the height area, as at five foot two she was the shortest in the family, with me next at five foot six.

I had five siblings, two sisters and three brothers, this meant that out side in the drop off area we were taking up a lot of space with all eight of us stood their.

"Yes, I'm sure I've got everything, I double checked before we left." I replied to her, in an exasperated tone, she knew I had everything as she checked everything with me. But that was my mum, she worried to much.

I looked at my watch and knew that I would have to say bye quickly, so that I wasn't late for my flight.

"I'm gonna have to hurry mum, you know that I don't want to give them the wrong impression by being late for my flight." I said frowning.

"Just let us all give you a hug and say bye before you have to go Anna." She tearfully said, coming towards me with her arms open wide. Squashing me to her chest, I saw a few tears roll down her cheek.

"At least let someone else say good bye mum before you suffocate her." That was David, my older brother. He reluctantly pulled our mother away.

He then embraced me in a way that felt life he was crushing my body, as his six foot two frame towered over me.

"Can't breathe." I gasped for breath.

He pulled away, and was quickly replaced by Ash and Mike, my two younger brothers.

"Whose gonna fix the wifi when the dogs chew through the cable?" Ash asked, probably wondering how he would play his online games without me to quickly fix the cable.

"I don't know? Maybe if you asked nicely Mike will do it for you." I ruffled both their hair as they went to stand by Mum and David.

The next to greet me goodbye was the twins, Genie and Amelie. They didn't hug me, as we didn't have the best sibling relationship, so they just stood there giving me a small awkward wave, while saying bye.

My Dad, placed my bag down in front if me and gave a quick hug, before wishing me goodbye.

"I've got to go now, guys. I'll call you once my flight lands." I said as I pick my bag of the floor and started waking towards the entrance. Before I went through the door I looked back to see the waving, with tears in their eyes.

After getting through the commotion of getting my flight, I sat down in my seat and sighed, thinking "I finally get to do something worth mentioning." I didn't think that I would get this far, I thought it was going to be like any other plan I made, it would go in to the distance as if it was never there.

I hoped that this work that I would be doing would help other people and help the achieve a better life, just from me being there.

Even though I was nervous as the flight started to take of all I thought was "Calcutta here comes Anna Wain, and your not gonna want to miss her."


	2. Chapter 2

During my two weeks here already I'm shocked to see the huge gap that was between the well off and the poor. For example there was two trains per track with one of them being the upper class train with nice plush seats and looks of space to move around, with business men sat down doing work on their computers or on the phone to someone, the other train on the track was the train which the lower classes used to commute between their low paying jobs, their train was full to the brim with people having to stand and many with their heads nearly out of a window, often you could see a person on top of the train holding on for their life as they couldn't pay the money to get on the train.

On my first day in India I met up with the group manager, Sarah Jenson, her job was to look after me and five other volunteers. Sarah met me at the airport and took me to my host family, The Sharma's. They were a couple from a well off background that found they couldn't have children so decided to help host volunteers that were helping the less fortunate children of Calcutta. I am convinced that Nani Sharma was the nicest woman in India, she treats all of us volunteers as if where are her own children and most of us found it a true shame that her and her husband, Param, could not conceive children, as we were all sure that any child would be happy to call her their mother. Param, Nani's husband was also very kind and would do anything for his wife, it was obvious by the look in his eyes that Nani was the centre of his world.

With the Sharma' they were five other volunteers also belonging to Sarah's group, there was four girls including me and two boys. Us four girls shared a rook together and the two boys shared a room together. Of the girls there is Harriet, the youngest of us at eighteen, she was sent here by her parents to experience life that the less fortunate have, next was Greta at twenty, she had already travelled to many places before which could be seen in her tanned skin and calloused hands, then it was me at twenty-two, the oldest of us is Jenna at thirty-two who did volunteering after loosing her job. The boys were Fillip, who was a linguist out of the group and could speak three foreign languages, Hindi, French and Italian. The other boy is Daniel who was the quiet one of the group, he doesn't speak much and is either out volunteering or inside the room he's been given.

Sarah came around to the Sharma house every morning and gave us our job for the day. Usually I had to help the children with their maths work as I wasn't used to using Hindi as a language and I didn't need it to teach the kids maths. The Sunny Centre was in the slum part of the city which meant that all of us at the Sharma house had to walk through the well of part of the city through the slums, passing many of the children that we see at the Sunny Centre as many lived on the streets, it was a huge shock that many of the people who volunteers see in a day were actually homeless, even the children as young as two are also without a home.

Many of the older kids at the Sunny Centre had a basic knowledge of English with many of volunteers being English the had to learn some of the basics. Many of the children formed attachments to one volunteer and within one week one of the children had already attached themselves to me.

Sharni was six years old and luckily came from one of the families that were not homeless, from what I could understand she did not have a mother or father, I did not care to ask why with her being so young, she lived with her grandparents in the slums which I knew from when her grandmother, who seemed very week as she walked with to wooden canes, dropped her off at the centre.

Sharni loved to sit next to me in the classroom and was always talking to me, even though half the time I had no idea what she was talking about, as she often spoke to fast in Hindi for me to understand even the slightest what she was saying. When it was time for me to play out side in the street with the children Sharni always wanted to play with me.

* * *

As we went out side on to the dirt road out side to play Sharni grabbed my arm and pulled me towards a building at the opposite end of the road. As we got to the side of the building she turned me around to face her and then mimed covering her eyes with her hand and said something to me in Hindi.

"Hide and seek." I said, telling her what she wanted to play in english.

I then put all my fingers in the air and then bunched them into a fist and stretching them out again indicating that I would be counting to twenty. I turned around to face the building closing my eyes and counting to twenty, I couldn't hear where Sharni was going as the laughter and cries of joy from the other children filled the air.

"Eighteen, nineteen, twenty." I finished, I then shouted "Ready or not, here I come."

I looked around many of the buildings looking for any sign of her, after five minutes and I could still not find her until I turned around really quickly and there she was, she roared to my face as she tried to scare me but it did not last long she started giggling, which then turned in to boisterous laughter.

The metal bell was then rang to signify that it was time to go back into the classroom. I swooped down to pick Sharni up, hanging her over my shoulder as she was still in a fit of giggles. As we went in th classroom I popped her on one of the desks and then went to write some simple sums on to the blackboard for the children to do.

I turned to face the well-behaved children and said, "Put your hand up if you know the answer to the first question?" I spoke for the older children who knew slight English but I made hand gesture to tell the children that didn't know English what I wanted them to do.

* * *

At the end of the day, as I waited for Greta to finish up inside the centre, I thought about the change I was doing by being here as a volunteer I knew that with the volunteering that I am doing now it will not affect the adults that are now in poverty now but it may help the children as the simple education that I am giving them could cause them to get better jobs than they would beforehand and that with this education they were less likely to have to suffer in the slums and their children will then be less likely to have to live in the slums, and it is my hope in the future that with volunteers such as myself we will hopefully in years ahead overcome the mast poverty that is happening all around the world.

As I was thinking, I was barged to the ground as two men went by learing at me on the dirt floor. I tried to get up and get a clear look of the men but as I did Greta cam out of the centre and pulled as towards the Sharma's, on the way all that Greta talked about was how she was looking forward to one of Nani's curries and then being able to rest in her bed, this caused me to forget about the men that had just pushed me down, not knowing that I would ever see them again.

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End file.
